The Ascent (episode)
Trapped on an inhospitable world, Quark and Odo must work together to survive. Meanwhile, Nog returns to the station from Starfleet Academy. Summary There's a feeling of anticipation in Sisko's quarters as Jake makes final preparations for the move to his own quarters. Jake will be living with Nog, but Sisko discovers that the boys' quarters will be not next door but on the other side of the habitat ring. The old man reminisces, but Jake is all too eager to move out on his own. Meanwhile, Quark enters Rom's quarters to find his brother anxiously awaiting Nog's return. Despite his own disapproval of Nog's attending Starfleet Academy, Quark has brought along several dozen bottles of root beer and is disgusted to see Rom drink one. The door chime rings and Rom grows excited, believing it might be his son, but it is Odo. The usual verbal sparring between Quark and Odo turns serious when Odo announces he has come to arrest Quark once and for all. Whatever has happened, it looks like Quark's shady dealings have finally caught up with him. Alone with Odo aboard a Runabout now, Quark grows increasingly bored and tries to find ways to pass the time. While he is interested by Odo's reading a romance novel, Quark finds the constable unwilling to indulge him in a card game or tell him what has happened. All he knows for sure is that a Federation grand jury has indicted him for something big. Back aboard Deep Space 9, Nog meets Captain Sisko in his office to take orders. A symbolic moment involving Sisko's baseball, which Nog catches, epitomizes the boy's transition into a model cadet. The captain claims Nog inspires him. However, when Nog and Jake move into their quarters, it is clear things will not be quite the same. Nog seems to have become more disciplined, while Jake has been slacking off on his writing. They are still best friends, but if Nog's 22:00 "lights out" time and 04:30 workout are any indication, the boys will not see eye to eye on everything. The utter lack of conversation and other stimuli has caused Quark's lobes to notice how annoyingly filled with sound the Runabout is. In particular, he claims that Odo, who is eating soup, smacks his lips when he eats. There is also a strange buzzing sound, although Odo does not hear it. A few seconds pass before Quark determines to find what the sound is, and over Odo's impatience, he finds that it is an explosive. Things go from bad to worse when they try to beam the explosive off the ship, which causes it to explode and nearly destroy the ship. The Runabout limps to a nearby planet, where they have to crash-land because the life support systems have been virtually destroyed. On the way down, Quark mentions the bomb was planted by the Orion Syndicate, to Odo's surprise; it seems the lack of information about the charges against Quark was an attempt by Odo, who also knew nothing, to gain information. Both men lose consciousness during the violent crash. Quark awakens to find their situation grim; the Class L planet on which they have landed is freezing (although the weather is otherwise hospitable), the communications system and most supplies were destroyed in the crash, and the local plants appear poisonous. They do have a couple of ration packs, but as Odo points out, they now have a choice between starving to death and freezing to death. On his first morning with Nog, Jake sleepily walks out of his bedroom to find his friend lifting weights. As usual, Jake passes on his own workout. Nog has found one of Jake's PADDs lying around with a story, "Past Prologue," on it, so Jake asks what he thought. However, Nog did not read for "content," but rather grammar and spelling errors. While this is "sacrilege" to Jake as a writer, Nog doesn't seem to care. He claims Jake needs some muscles. Meanwhile, Quark has found an environmental suit, which he plans to wear ("finders keepers"), and a transceiver array, which they can use to send a distress call. As the communications system and signal booster have been destroyed, he uses his Ferengi brain to calculate that they will need to send the signal from somewhere with less atmosphere -- namely, from the top of a nearby mountain. The pair begin their trek out into the wilderness, conversing along the way. It seems Quark believes Odo got what he wanted when his people made him a Solid, and while Odo denies it, in a way he seems to know this is true. On the other hand, were he still a Changeling, Odo could have flown to the top of the mountain already. Tension between Jake and Nog continues to mount. Nog comes home to find that, in the process of working on his story, Jake has left a mess in their quarters, and despite his claims of "working", Jake is playing computerized dom-jot to "inspire" him. Nog leaves, declaring he does not know where he is going but that anywhere would be better than with Jake. We now find that Quark and Odo have been hiking for three days. He and Odo have taken turns wearing the environmental suit, but between the hiking and the lack of beetles, Quark is about to collapse. Forcing his companion to push on, Odo assures him that they only have about six more hours to go. His opinion changes considerably when they reach the top of the hill they are climbing and find the mountain to be closer to six days away. They push on, but Quark reveals that he is not a member of the Orion Syndicate, as they do not kill their own. Odo realizes Quark was a witness, not a defendant, in the case. From this he surmises that Quark tried and failed to get into the Syndicate, which amuses him; however, Quark points out that this means Odo has spent ten years trying to catch a nobody. In the Replimat, Rom joins Sisko for lunch. As they discuss their sons' living together, each expresses his desire that his son would be more like the other's. As Sisko fondly remembers a time when the two were desperate to keep Jake and Nog away from each other, Rom reveals that Nog "cited" him for being disorganized and takes out a vial of blood, which he took from Nog to see if his son is a Changeling. In any case, Rom and Sisko agree their sons could learn a lot from each other. As things become increasingly desperate, Quark realizes that he can no longer hear out of his right ear. His body has begun to shut down due to excessive stress and lack of food. Odo declares his intent to push on, even if Quark is ready to give up, and Quark goes along if only because he does not want to be left alone to die. Their true feelings come out while they continue their journey, and they eventually stop to express their hatred for one another. They trip and fall down a slope in the heat of the moment, breaking Odo's leg in the process. Forming a crude, makeshift splint for Odo's leg, Quark determines to carry him to the top of the mountain. Although Odo tells Quark not to be an idiot, he claims to be bringing the other man along not to save him but to eat him in case of an emergency. The Ferengi continues to pull Odo, but eventually collapses, exhausted. Odo attempts to pull the transceiver himself, inspiring Quark to push on, if for no other reason then to keep Odo from besting him. Sisko surprises his son with a visit to inform Jake of some bad news: station "regulations" say that a single person cannot occupy double quarters, and unfortunately, there are no other quarters available. The solution, of course, is to get Jake a roommate, so Sisko calls Nog in. Over both boys' objections, Sisko makes them stay in the room together and leaves them alone. They both know how foolish they have been and attempt to reconcile, with Jake suggesting they go to the gym but Nog suggesting dom-jot instead. As Quark collapses amid a snowstorm, Odo has realized the Ferengi did not make it and begun dragging himself upward. Before long he realizes it is an exercise in futility and records a log on his communicator: :"Begin recording. Chief of security.. log... final entry. It looks like Quark didn't make it... Can't say I'm surprised. You'll find his body further up the slope... No doubt he'd want you to vacuum-desiccate his remains and auction them off. Not that they're worth much. As for myself... Cremate me, stick my ashes in my bucket, shoot me through the wormhole. Might as well end up where I began. Or better yet..." Odo is beamed off the surface by the Defiant as he speaks. It seems the ship was looking for Odo and Quark and picked up the signal from the transceiver. Worf and Dax inform him that they found Quark slumped over the emitter. The two of them end up in the Defiant's Sickbay alongside one another, where they reassure each other that they meant their words of hatred earlier -- their own way of apologizing and reassuring themselves that they are still friends, or at least adversaries. Memorable Quotes "Well, I guess you're not as successful a businessman as you think you are." "Which means you spent the last ten years of your life trying to catch a nobody – with little success, I might add. So you tell me, which one of us is the bigger failure?" : - Odo and Quark "We're going to clean ''every day?" "''No, Jake, just the odd- and even-numbered ones." : - Jake and Nog "This whole runabout is alive with annoying little noises." : - Quark, paraphrasing The Sound of Music. "All we have to do is haul this transmitter to higher ground, more altitude less atmosphere. Go high enough and we just might get a signal out." "How much higher do we have to go?" "Carry the seven, take the square root, times pi... I'd say ah... that high." : - Quark and Odo "You're nothing but a petty thief!" "And you're an arrogant prude!" "Lecher!" "Freak!" "Fraud!" "Fascist!" "Failure!" : - Odo and Quark "Don't you get it? I'm not trying to save you. I'm taking you along as emergency rations. If you die, I'm gonna eat you." "You're joking." "Waste not, want not." : - Quark and Odo "Now, I know the two of you are very different people, but you're still friends, and somehow, some way, you'll make this work." "I don't know..." "Neither do I." "Well I do. (to Nog) And I'm your captain. (to Jake) And your father. And what I say goes. Good day, gentlemen." : - Sisko, Nog, and Jake "If it wasn't for his signal, we never would have found you. Looks like he saved both your lives." "I was afraid you were going to say that." : - Dax and Odo, about Quark Background Information sets up a shot on the set of "The Ascent"]] * The origin of this episode is to be found in Ira Steven Behr's love for the 1949 play ; Behr had always wanted to do an episode with Odo in the role of Vladimir and Quark in the role of Estragon. The problem Behr had was with the story. The play has no discernible plot at all - it is simply about two characters sitting around waiting for something undefined and something which never arrives, and they spend most of the play insulting one another. According to Behr, the only plot he could come up with for a ''Deep Space Nine'' episode was having Odo and Quark waiting somewhere for Sisko to bring them a runabout, but they've no idea why or how long they've been there. Behr never got around to doing the episode, but when the writing staff decided to do a story about Odo and Quark getting into mortal danger somewhere off the station, he revived his Godot idea, and he and Robert Hewitt Wolfe used it as their template for "The Ascent". (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) * A major motivator for this episode was to deal with Odo's new status as a solid. According to Robert Hewitt Wolfe, "we wanted to do an episode emphasizing Odo's human frailty, showing the effects on him of not being able to shape-shift. But we didn't want him to be fighting bad guys because we'd done stuff like that already. We wanted to have him going somewhere that would have been easy for Odo to get to if he could morph. So we put him and Quark up against the elements and had them climb a mountain." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) * The outdoor scenes for this episode were filmed at 14,495 feet, on in central California. * Normally, Armin Shimerman has no problems with the Quark prosthetics, but shooting on this particular location proved different. When they arrived for the first day of shooting, the pressure inside the Quark head became too much for Shimerman and he nearly passed out. At first, there were fears that the entire episode may have to be pulled, but the on-set medic had actually prepared for altitude reactions and was able to ensure that Shimerman could shoot. According to Shimerman, "the medic's the hero of that episode." (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) * Odo's enquiry as to how it could be so cold when the sun is shining was added on-set because of the excellent weather during production. Although it was supposed to be freezing cold on-camera, in reality, temperatures went as high as 65°F/18°C, making shooting extremely uncomfortable for both Armin Shimerman and Rene Auberjonois. To make it look colder than it actually was, director of photography Kris Krosskove used a very wide lens and a filter to give the film an 'icy' look. In the evenings he used a neutralizing filter to tone down the orange-ness of the setting sun, whilst for the telecine transfer, Krosskove told the lab to keep the color spectrum towards blue to enhance the frigid tone he wanted. (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion) * This is the final episode to feature the uniforms originally created for the series. However, they would continue to be used for the duration of Star Trek: Voyager. They were also used sparingly in DS9, usually by Admirals such as William Ross and Charles Whatley, and one was seen being worn by a familiar Starfleet prisoner in Dominion Internment Camp 371 in . * Quark offers to teach Odo to play Fizzbin. That game was first mentioned back in . * The title of Jake's story in this episode (which Nog corrects) is an obvious inside reference to the first season episode . Video and DVD releases *UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 5.5, . *As part of the DS9 Season 5 DVD collection. Links and References Guest Stars *Max Grodénchik as Rom *Aron Eisenberg as Nog References Class L; ''Defiant'', USS; Divine Treasury; domjot; fascism; Federation Grand Jury; field study; fizzbin; holosuite; Inferna Prime; latinum; Orange juice; Orion; Orion Syndicate; polynutrient solution; Replimat; root beer; signal booster; Snail juice; Sonic shower; Starbase 137; Vorian pterodactyl; Vulcan Love Slave; |next= }} Ascent, The de:Der Aufstieg es:The Ascent nl:The Ascent